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HISTORICAL EVIDENCE SUPPORTING INTERPRETATION OF 38

Notes researched & collected by Peter A. Schwartzkopff

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Contents

WHAT THE IS ABOUT ...... 3 IDENTIFICATION OF THE NATIONS OF ...... 4 A critical rule of interpretation...... 4 SUMMARY ...... 6 THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE...... 7 ...... 7 Conclusion : ...... 10 ROSH ...... 11 Conclusion ...... 20 & ...... 24 Conclusion: ...... 28 PERSIA () ...... 30 Conclusion: ...... 30 PHUT (OR ‘’) ...... 31 Conclusion: ...... 31 (‘ETHIOPIA’) ...... 33 Conclusion ...... 33 ...... 35 Timeline ...... 36 Conclusion ...... 38 ...... 39 Conclusion : ...... 41 SHEBA ...... 43 Conclusion: ...... 43 DEDAN ...... 44 Conclusion: ...... 44 TARSHISH ...... 45 Conclusions ...... 46 ULTIMATE SUMMARY...... 47

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WHAT THE PROPHECY IS ABOUT This prophecy is in many respects very simple.

It says that a leader called Gog who is from the land of Magog and who has influence over Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal and who has alliances with Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, Gomer, and the House of Togarmah, is called to invade the land of Israel. This invasion will result in his destruction but ’s glory and praise in the sight of all the world.

This invasion occurs:

• In the last days • When a persecuted people have been brought back to the mountains of Israel • When those people occupy the mountains of Israel • When those people are living peacefully and confidently in the land • When these people are living in the navel of the earth

Gog is weakly opposed at the time by the merchants of Tarshish and their young lions who are somewhere near Israel. They are allies with Sheba and Dedan. They all say to Gog “why have you come?” Gog and his armies are destroyed and buried in the holy land. Israel is restored back to God, and God is worshipped throughout the world.

So these notes are an obvious need. These notes attempt to identify the main players in this end time drama.

This same event is described at the end of Daniel Chapter 11 as the table below shows:

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IDENTIFICATION OF THE NATIONS OF EZEKIEL 38

Back in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union I wrote an article for the Christadelphian. The aim was to encourage the brotherhood to not throw out the Russian connection with the prophecy and to encourage accurate interpretation of that prophecy. This I hoped would allow the making of accurate predictions of key events and developments in our time using the prophecy.

After considering the 2 possible modes of interpretation I concluded that:

1) The nations spoken of by Ezekiel would refer to the peoples who in the last days would inhabit the territory occupied by the nations named in the prophecy at the time Ezekiel was given the prophecy1.

2) The modern nation that would be derived would come from the territories into which then ancient nations mentioned have migrated by the time of the last days.

Given the huge and complex movements of people since the sixth xentury BC, I concluded that the former rule of thumb was the one to use. Doing this brings me at times into conflict with some of Dr Thomas’2 writings.

A critical rule of interpretation. Some of my identifications are at odds with those in Elpis Israel. That is not a bad thing as after all we are in the game of searching for truth not upholding dogma. However it must be recognised that there has been a lot of historical scholarship since his times which have brought a lot more light onto the issue.

Another thing that has to be recognised is that some of the historical research by our brotherhood has been very sloppy. For example, the assertion that Meshech and Tubal represent and Tobolski is simply that – an assertion. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to support the idea. Not only that when we use that idea we lose sight of the fact that the prophecy relates to nations in the and their relationships with Russia. We may as a result miss significant developments in this regiontherefore missing important signs of the Lord’s return.

1 It appears that the prophecy in Ezekiel chapter 38 was given in the “the twelfth year, in the twelfth month on the first day ” - that is, in the twelfth year of Jehoiachin’s exile – that is, in about 586 B.C.

2 A significant brother in the early days of the Chri8stadelphian group who wrote a great deal about prophecy – especially in a book called Elpis Israel which was published in 1848

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Magog

Meshech Rosh Tubal

Gomer

Persia

Phut

Togarmah

Cush

Gog’s Alliance

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SUMMARY

Ezekiel 38 Name Modern Identification Fulfilled Gog Name of Leader of Russia Yes. VV Putin has been called ’krysha’ meaning roof 34 Magog Russia (in Europe and Siberia) Yes Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly Mongolia Rosh Ukraine5 6 7 Yes Meshech Yes Tubal or part thereof Probably south Ossetia which was taken by Russia in 2008. Persia Iran Yes Libya Libya No8 Ethiopia Yes Gomer Serbia, and possibly Rumania, , Yes to Serbia , and Hungary9 Togarmah Armenia10 Yes Merchants of Tarshish USA & UK Yes Young Lions Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Yes New Zealand Sheba Yes Dedan , , Yes , , etc.

3 The Hebrew word for roof is Gog

4 Tsar Vladimir Putin: KGB Kremlin Golden Boy- Kryshas, roofs in Russian, are very important in Russia, but no krysha is more important than the one on the Kremlin, just ask "Vlad the Impaler" Putin. http://suite101.com/article/vlad-the-impaler-putin-putting-pedal-to-metal- a397739

“the term krysha (roof) has even entered the international vocabulary. ”http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=27420#.UbGbL5yhqto

5 went through the Orange Revolution in 2004 and looked like entering the EU. However Ezekiel 38 requires Rosh to be part of Gog’s alliance. It therefore was foreseeable that the Ukraine would be pulled back into the Russian sphere of influence – which it has! 6 Ukraine was to sign an agreement with the EU on November 23rd 2013 but on November 21st the Ukrainian president Mr Yanukovych changed his mind. A few weeks later Mr Putin loaned Ukaraine $16 billion and cut the gas price by one third. Ukraine was firmly with Russia despite the protests.

7 The actual territory of Rosh in the 6th Century BC corresponds to south-eastern Ukraine and Crimea

8 Since Muammar Gaddafi’s removal by NATO in 2011, Russia has had limited connection with Libya. Some of their gas and oil companies operate there.

9 Previously included France and Germany in this group. There is no need for that. That came about because Gomer was associated with living in Europe. But that did not occur in time of Ezekiel. It was centuries later.

10 Twenty five years ago I thought Togarmah represented – taking on the ideas of H.P.Mansfield.

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THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

MAGOG

1. Josephus (1st Cent AD, Ant 1:6;1) says that Magog was the ancestor of the people called by the .

2. Therefore wherever Scythians were when Ezekiel was given the prophecy (5th Century BC)is the territory of Magog.

3. According to (2nd Cent BC) "the ancient Greeks at first called the northern nation by the general name Scythians".

4. Diodorus of Sicily (64-21 BC. Bk 2, paras 35,37,44) tells us that the Scythians lived in the territory from Central Europe to Central Asia above India.

5. In the time of (490-425 BC, Bk 4;46-59, they were in much the same territory, extending to the river . However he informs us that about thirty years before the prophecy of Ezekiel was given the Scythians were only as far westward as the river Don in Russia. Interpolation is needed to judge where they exactly were in Ezekiel’s time. However it must be in between the Don and the Danube.

6. The Scythians (Sakans to the ) lived in the Steppes, from the 7th to the 3rd century B.C., displacing the in the area of the Ukraine. Scythians and may have attacked in the 7th century. Herodotus says the language and culture of the Scythians was like that of nomadic Iranian tribes. He also says Amazons mated with Scythians to produce the . At the end of the fourth century, the Scythians crossed the Tanais or Don River, settling down between it and the . Herodotus called the Scythians.

7. The first to describe the life style of these tribes was a Greek historian, Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BC. Although he concentrates on the tribes living in modern Ukraine, which he calls Scythians, we may extrapolate his description to people in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly Mongolia, even though Herodotus usually calls these eastern nomads 'Sacae'. In fact, just as the Scythians and the Sacae shared the same life style, they had the same name: in their own language, which belonged to the Indo-Iranian family, they called themselves Skudat ('archers'). The Persians rendered this name as Sakâ and the Greeks as Skythai. The Chinese called them, at a later stage in history, Sai.

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Scythians in 650 BC. in central Asia were classed as Scythians as well.

This map shows location of Scythians in 500BC.

This map shows the full extent of the Scythians around 400 BC

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Shows Scythians and Cimmerians 1000-400BC

8. The Saka (Old Iranian Sakā; Latinized Sacae) were a Scythian tribe, rendered in Greek as Σάκαι, in Chinese as 塞 (pinyin sāi; from Old Chinese *sək), and in as शक (śaka), referring to those Scythians who founded the Indo-Scythian kingdom in the 2nd century BC.

The Khan (leader) of the Scythian Armour Scythian Cavalry Tatars. Note the bow and the pointed hat

Saka (Scythian) horseman from Pazyryk in Gold artefacts of the Saka in , at the Central Asia, c. 300 BC site of Tillia tepe.

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9. Modern historical accounts of the Indo-Scythian wars often assume that the Scythian protagonists were a single tribe called the Saka (Sakai or ). But earlier Greek and texts suggest that the term Scythians referred to a much more widespread grouping of Central Asian peoples.Some Asian Saka includes, Abhira, Nagbanshi, Andhra,Bala, Gurjjara.

10. To Herodotus (484-425 BC), the Sakai were the 'Amurgioi Skuthai' (i.e. Scythians from Ammyurgia).

11. Strabo (Gaius Strabo, 63 BC-AD 24 circa) suggests that the term Skuthais (Scythians) referred to the Sakai and several other tribes.

12. Arrian (Lucius Flavius Arrianus '' , c AD 92-175), refers to the Sakai as Skuthon (a Scythian people) or the Skuthai (the Scythians) who inhabit Asia.

13. It is clear that the Greek and Latin scholars cited here believed, all Sakai were Scythians, but not all Scythians were Sakai. It seems likely that modern confusion about the identity of the Scythians is partly due to the Persians. According to Herodotus, the Persians called all Scythians by the name Sakas. (Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23–79) provides a more detailed explanation, stating that the Persians gave the name Sakai to the Scythian tribes: "nearest to them". This likely explains why all the Scythians began to be called Sakai. Conclusion : Using the rule of interpretation of identifying the nations with the territory they occupied at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy (i.e. early 6th Century BC) we therefore conclude that:

Magog takes in the territory of modern Russia (in Europe and Siberia) Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly Mongolia.

Though the Scythians spread to eastern Europe after the time of Ezekiel, they inhabited what we term European Russia and Central Asia at the time of Ezekiel.

Map showing European Russia in our times

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ROSH Ezekiel uses the name Rosh as a name (c.586 BC). That this name is intended as a name of a people or land is supported by the Septuagint translation (c.287 BC) of the Ezekiel prophecy where it talks about “” = the prince of Rosh

1. The Scythian tribes occupy southern Ukraine, Crimea, and eastern Europe from the River Don to the Danube in 450 BC. They had ejected the Cimmerians () from this region in the 8th Century BC.11 2. The Royal Scythians – the chief tribe of the Scythians in what is south eastern Ukraine12 and Crimea until the first century BC1314. This territory is called in their day the “Royal District”- a special appellation. Now in their own language the Scythians are called Scolotes (in the Greek form). This name comes from the Zend15 word for chief. (c.p. Hebrew Rosh also means chief). The name sounded like ‘Skhilti’ in the original language of Scythians, and the word refers to the upper strata of society in Karachai-Balkarian1617. Herodotus informs the reader that the Royal Scythians were an elite which dominated the other Scythians. 3. On 's second century A.D. map of the inhabited world, the are placed just north of the and north of the Sea of Azov. Above them are the Asaei and the Alani. Ptolemy's map associates these people with this region about 170 A.D. 4. The Byzantine writer of Caesarea speaks of the people called “” when talking about the the Roxolanians18 who are a Sarmatian(Alanic) tribe living in south eastern Ukraine and Crimea19 in the fifth century AD. The  are mentioned by Procopius in reference to the Byzantine Bishop Proclus20. Proclus referred to the people of Ros who were threatening Byzantium from the North.

11 Herodotus 4.11 trans. G. Rawlinson.

12 Herodotus 4.20 “On the opposite side of the Gerrhus is the Royal district, as it is called: here dwells the largest and bravest of the Scythian tribes, which looks upon all the other tribes in the light of slaves. Its country reaches on the south to Taurica, on the east to the trench dug by the sons of the blind slaves, the mart upon the Palus Maeotis, called Cremni (the Cliffs), and in part to the river Tanais. πέρην δὲ τοῦ Γέρρου ταῦτα δὴ τὰ καλεύμενα βασιλήια ἐστὶ καὶ Σκύθαι οἱ ἄριστοί τε καὶ πλεῖστοι καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους νομίζοντες Σκύθας δούλους σφετέρους εἶναι· κατήκουσι δὲ οὗτοι τὸ μὲν πρὸς μεσαμβρίην ἐς τὴν Ταυρικήν, τὸ δὲ πρὸς ἠῶ ἐπί τε τάφρον, τὴν δὴ οἱ ἐκ τῶν τυφλῶν γενόμενοι ὤρυξαν, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς λίμνης τῆς Μαιήτιδος τὸ ἐμπόριον τὸ καλέεται Κρημνοί· τὰ δὲ αὐτῶν κατήκουσι ἐπὶ ποταμὸν Τάναϊν.

13 Their principal tribe, the "Royal Scyths", ruled the vast lands occupied by the nation as a whole (Herodotus 4.20), calling themselves Σκώλοτοι (Scōloti, Herodotus 4.6) According Herodotus the River Gerros followed from the Dniepr to the sea and runs in the Kypakyris near it.“Seventh is the Gerros , which parts off from the Borysthenes near about that part of the country where the Borysthenes ceases to be known, - it parts off, I say, in this region and has the same name which this region itself has, namely Gerros; and as it flows to the sea it borders the country of the nomad and that of the Royal Scythians, and runs out into the Hypakyris. “

14 Strabo, in speaking of the limits of the inhabitable world, mentions "the Roxolanians, the most remote of the known Scythians...the regions beyond the Roxolanians become at once uninhabitable because of the cold; farther south of the Roxolanians are the Sarmatians who dwell beyond [north of] Lake Maeotis"* (the Sea of Azov).. "Between the Tanais and the dwell the Roxolani...dwellers in wagons with tents on them...We don't know if anyone lives north of them." Strabo; Book II, 5:7 Strabo; Book VII, 2:4. Strabo; Book VII, 3:17.

15 Universal Geography: Or A Description of All Parts of the World , Volume 4, page 228

16 The History Of The Karachai-Balkarian People From The Ancient Times To Joining Russia by I. M. Miziyev , Nalchik: Mingi-Tau Publishing, 1994

17 Herodotus also mentions a royal tribe or clan, an elite which dominated the other Scythians: “Then on the other side of the Gerros we have those parts which are called the ‘Royal’ lands and those Scythians who are the bravest and most numerous and who esteem the other Scythians their slaves.” (Herodotus. History. Book IV, verses 19–20.)

18 James Bell in ‘A System of Geography, Popular and Scientific: Volume 1 says that the Roxolani were later called Ῥῶς.In ‘The of Byzantium’ Sigfus Blondal claims that a branch of the is called Ῥῶς’ in a Syrian Annal (p.4) while Bochart in his Sacred Geography says the name Roxolani is compounded from Ros and Alani . According to the historian Vernadsky the “Rox a.k.a Rukhs, Ros,Roxolani, and Rus were called the most important tribe of the North Caucasian Alans.” He also said that the Ros are a subtribe of the As. They were to give their name to the people of Ros later. As an As tribe, "the Ros were originally an Irano-Slav tribe."

19 Exactly the same area in which the Royal Scythians lived.

20 Proclus was the Archbishop of from 434 to 446. He was a friend and disciple of St. John Chrysostom. His reign as Archbishop occurred just before the defeated the Roxolani in the 5th Century AD.

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5. George Kedrenos was a Byzantine historian. In the 1050s he compiled A concise history of the world, which spanned the time from the biblical account of creation to his own day. He wrote: “Meanwhile all the maritime regions within the Pontos Euxeinos were plagued and ravaged by the incursions of the ‘Rös ships. The ‘Rös are a Scythian people, dwelling in the the northern Taurus, savage and monstrous in size.” 6. Various Arab, Byzantine, and Frankish records talk about the Rus’ Khaganate. The Rus' Khaganate (sometimes called Volkhov Rus, Ilmen Rus, or Novgorod Rus) was a polity that flourished during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe (roughly the late eighth and early to mid-ninth centuries C.E.). A predecessor to the Dynasty and Kievan Rus', the Rus' Khaganate was a nation-state (or a cluster of city-states) in what is today northern Russia.21 7. In fact, many ancient sources (e.g. The Bertinian Annals of the 9th Cent AD, and the Bavarian Geographer of 9th Cent AD) are at one in stating that in the ninth and tenth centuries the Rus were a people different from other inhabitants of Eastern Europe in speech, custom, and appearance (H. Pasziewicz, The Making of the Russian Nation, p 110). 8. Arab22 writers use Rus’ and the Byzantines23 “” in referring to the principality of Kievan Rus in the 9th to 12th centuries. According to Paul Miliukov the name "Rus" was first applied to the chief men24 of Kiev and then to the province of Kiev - and thence over time to people ruled by Kiev and lastly to all of Russia. 9. The Rus warlords Oleg of Novgorod and Sviatoslav I of Kiev launched several wars against the Khazar khaganate, often with Byzantine connivance. The Schechter Letter relates the story of a campaign against Khazaria by HLGW (Oleg) around 941 (in which Oleg was defeated by the Khazar general Pesakh; this calls into question the timeline of the Primary Chronicle and other related works on the history of the Eastern . Sviatoslav finally succeeded in destroying Khazar imperial power in the 960s. The Khazar fortresses of Sarkel and Tamatarkha fell to the Rus in 965, with the capital city of Atil following circa 967 or 969. A visitor

21 David Christian. A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia. (Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 9780631208143), 338

22 For example, Ibn Khordadbeh described the Rus' buying goods from the in the market areas on the lower Volga and selling them on the markets of Caspian towns; these -Aḥmad ebn Roste Eṣfahānī, also spelled Ibn Rusta, Ibn Ruste) was a 10th - اااا ااا اااا ااااااا :merchants brought furs, honey, and slaves. Ibn Rustah (in Persian century Persian explorer and geographer born in Rosta district, Isfahan, Persia.[1] He wrote a geographical compendium known as Book of Precious Records. Ibn Rustah writes: “ As for the Rus, they live on an island ... that takes three days to walk round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests; it is most unhealthy. ... They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them; they carry them off as slaves and…sell them. They have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slav's lands. ... When a son is born, the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says, "I shall not leave you with any property: You have only what you can provide with this weapon." Also Ibn Fadlan.

23 The ninth chapter of the work by Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (written around 950 AD) is titled ‘About the Ros (Ῥῶς)’ who came from Russia to Constantinople with their boats. In the 10th century (c.967 AD) Simon Logotheta refers to ‘’ living in the north of the Taurus (Crimea) as  (people of ). Monk George also of the tenth century says Ῥῶς were a wild tribe in the mountains of Taurus (Crimea).

24 Golden (p621) concludes the section on "The Origins of the Rus" in Encyclopaedia of as follows:

“The evidence is highly circumstantial at best. Given the complexities of their conjectured origins, it may, nonetheless, not be amiss to view the Rus at this stage of their development, as they began to penetrate Eastern Europe, not as an ethnos, in the strict sense of the term, for this could shift as new ethnic elements were added, but rather as a commercial and political organisation. The term was certainly associated with maritime and riverine traders and merchant-mercenaries/pirates of "Sakaliba" stock (Northern and Eastern European, Scandinavian, Slavic and Finnic).” This idea dispenses with both the Norman and autochonthous theories of the origins of the Rosh. It would suggest that originally it delineated a ‘class division’ It is almost as if the word Rosh originally referred to the elite in the society of Southern Ukraine. That would explain why in 936 Rus were described as Scandinavian and Slavic in 1043.

The increasing volume of trade and internal competition necessitated higher forms of organization. The Rus' appeared to emulate aspects of Khazar political organization—hence the appearance of a Rus' chaganus in the Carolingian court in 839 (Royal Frankish Annals). Legitimization was sought by way of adopting a Christian and linguistically Slavic high culture that became the Kieven Rus'. The burials ('chamber' or 'retainer' graves) attributed to the Kievan Rus' have only a superficial resemblance to supposed Scandinavian prototypes—only the grave construction was similar, whilst the range of accompanying artefacts, the inclusion of weapons, horses and slave girls have no parallels in Scandinavia. Moreover, there is doubt if the emerging Kievan Rus' were the same clan as the "Rus" who visited the Carolingians in 839 or who attacked Constantinople in 860 AD. This is despite what is said in the Primary Chronicle, the Rus' were a group of Varangians who lived, along with other groups like Swedes and Gutes, on the other side of the Baltic Sea, in Scandinavia and as far as the land of the English and the French. The Varangians were first expelled, then invited to rule the warring Slavic and Finnic tribes of Novgorod: The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians—, Slavs, Merians, and Krivichs—drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom". Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gutes, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Veps then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected. They brought with them all the Rus and migrated.[The Primary Chronicle, 879–902 AD.]

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to Atil wrote soon after the sacking of the city: "The Rus attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch." So then Kievan Rus controlled the Crimea. 10. In his treatise De Administrando Imperio, Constantine VII25 describes the Rhos as the neighbours of who buy from the latter cows, horses, and sheep "because none of these animals may be found in Rhosia". His description represents the Rus' as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both Rhos and in . The Rhos names have distinct Germanic . 11. The Rus’ name is passes on to several principalities after Kievan Rus collapses as a state. In the north there is the Tsardom of Rus’ (otherwise called Muscovy) In the southern regions there are: I. and Ruś Biała — White , or White Rus', or Belarus; II. Chorna Rus and Ruś Czarna — Black Ruthenia, part of modern Belarus; and III. Chervona Rus and Ruś Czerwona — , now a small strip in (Przemyśl) and the rest in Ukraine (). Poland called this area the "Ruthenian Voivodeship." IV. Zelena Rus - Siberia. V. New Rus - Novorossiya.( Russian: Новоро́ссия) The Russian Empire gradually gained control over the area, signing peace treaties with the Cossack Hetmanate and with the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1735–39, 1768–74, 1787–92 and 1806–12. 12. The name Russia is not used until the 16th Century A.D. and then in reference to Muscovy. The two names "Russia" and "Muscovy" appear to have co-existed as interchangeable during the later 16th and throughout the 17th century with different maps and sources using different names. According to prominent historians like Alexander Zimin or Anna Khoroshkevich, the continuous using of the term Muscovy was a result of the traditional habit and the need to distinguish between the Muscovite and the Lithuanian part of the Rus, as well as of the political interests of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which competed with Moscow for the western parts of the Rus'. Due to the propaganda of the Commonwealth as well as of the Jesuits the term Muscovy was used instead of Russia in many parts of Europe where prior to the reign of Peter the Great there was a lack of direct knowledge of the country.

Synopsis

The Royal Scythians (βασιληίωs Σκυθέωs) whose Scythian name derives from a Zend word meaning chief or head and who come from Iranian Scyths were a class of wealthy aristocrats who left elaborate graves filled with richly worked articles of gold and other precious materials. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest and most numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. The Royal Scyths were headed by a sovereign whose authority was transmitted to his son. They inhabited the “Royal District” in south eastern Ukraine and Crimea. This area is likely to be the area of Rosh. Later the Roxolani who lived in the same region were called “”. Later still the principality of Kiev was called Rus’ after the chief men of that city. Golden in his section on "The Origins of the Rus" in the Encyclopaedia of Islam states: “Given the complexities of their conjectured origins, it may, nonetheless, not be amiss to view the Rus at this stage of their development, as they began to penetrate Eastern Europe, not as an ethnos, in the strict sense of the term, for this could shift as new ethnic elements were added, but rather as a commercial and political organisation. Or as other writers suggest they were a class of ruling elite much like the Royal Scyths of ancient times.

25 He lived 905-959 AD

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A likely hypothesis is that the Rosh referred to by Ezekiel was the Royal District of the Royal Scyths. This would then mean that the Rosh we are looking for almost exactly matches the territory of the so-called Novorossiya.

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Land of Royal Scythians – the Royal District

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Roxolani – BC

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Roxolanians – 4th Century AD

Rus’ settlements in red – mid 9th century AD

Kievan Rus’ 950 AD

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Novorossiya 1764

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Novorossiya claims 2014

Conclusion The leader of Russia as “Prince of Rosh” controls Crimea and maybe south – eastern Ukraine.

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Royal Scythians = land of Rosh

(Herodotus IV:19-20)

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In our time, eastern and western Ukraine split along language and ethnic lines. Rhe south- east and Crimea is predominantly Russian. 23 | P a g e

MESHECH & TUBAL

1. Josephus Flavius identified the Cappadocian Moschoi with the Biblical Japhetic tribe descended from Meshech in his writings on the Genealogy of the Nations in Genesis 10

2. Moschians are mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of Tiglath-Pileser I of dating to 1115-1100 B.C. He led a campaign against them in the North of Commagene and mountains of Georgia and .

3. In the days of the Seljuk Turks (13 Cent AD) there existed in Trans- Caucasia a province called "Meschi”(Cambridge Medieval History ,vol 4) The most important princely houses were in medieval times were the Mkhargrdzeli-Zachariads of Lor'i, Jaqelis of Meschia (Samts'khe), Dadianis of Mingrelia, Sharvashidzes of Bakhazia, T'orelis of Javakhet'i, Orbeli-Kakhaberidzes of Racha, Orbelianis of Surami. The latter's cousins, exiled under George III, had come to reign, under the protection of the Atabegs of Azerbaijan and, later, the Mongols, in the Armenian principality of Siunia.

3. Moschia (, ) is a mountainous region of Georgia between , Armenia, and . The Moschian Mountains were the connecting chain between the Caucasus and Anti Taurus Mountains. The people of that area were known as the Moschi. Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 - 476 BCE) speaks of the Moschi as "Colchians" (perhaps, Georgian speaking), situated next to the Matieni ().[5]

4. Wilhelm Gesenius suggested that the Moschi were descended from the Biblical Meshech tribe.

5. By the Georgian tradition, the name of the Mosch-Meschs is connected with the name of the Iberian capital - , In any case, there can be little doubt that the population who settled in Mtskhela were the bearers of the Hittite-Analolian cultural traditions. According to the scholars, the of Mtskheta like , Zadeni, Gatsi and Ga correspond to the Anatolian deities: Arma, Santa, Atis and Kibela

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5. Strabo locates the Moschoi in two places. The first location is somewhere in modern Abkhazia (Georgia) on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in agreement with Stephan of Byzantium quoting Hellanicus. The second location Moschice (Moschikê) – in which was a temple of Leucothea, once famous for its wealth, but plundered by Pharnaces and Mithridates – was divided between the Colchians, , and Iberians (cf. Mela, III. 5.4; Pliny VI.4.). These latter Moschoi were obviously the Georgian Meskhi or Mesx’i (where Greek χ, chi, is Georgian ხ, x). Procopius calls them Meschoi and says that they were subject to the Iberians (i.e., ), and had embraced , the of their masters. According to Professor James R. Russell of Harvard University, the Georgian designation for Armenians Somekhi, preserves the old name of the Mushki.

6. Strabo mentions the Moschian Mountains as joining the Caucasus (Geography, 11.2.1). He says that the Moschian country lay above the rivers Phasis, Glaucus, and Hippus (Geography, 11.2.17). In it "lies the temple of Leucothea, founded by Phrixus, and the oracle of Phrixus, where a ram is never sacrificed; it was once rich, but it was robbed in our time by Pharnaces, and a little later by Mithridates of Pergamum." (ibid).

7. According to the renowned scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff, the Moschians were the early proto-Georgian tribes which were integrated into the first early Georgian state of Colchis.

8. By the Georgian tradition, the name of the Mosch-Meschs is connected with the name of the Iberian capital - Mtskheta, In any case, there can be little doubt that the population who settled in Mtskhela were the bearers of the Hittite-Analolian cultural traditions. According to the scholars, the old Georgian gods of Mtskheta like Armazi, Zadeni, Gatsi and Ga correspond to the Anatolian deities: Arma, Santa, Atis and Kibela

9. According to Herodotus, the equipment of the Moschoi was similar to that of the , , Mossynoeci and Mardae, with wooden caps upon their heads, and shields and small spears, on which long points were set. All these tribes formed the 19th satrapy of the , extending along the southeast of the Euxine, or the Black Sea, and bounded on the south by the lofty chain of the Armenian mountains.

11. Two different groups are called Muški in the Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the 12th to 9th centuries BC, located near the confluence of the Arsanias and the ("Eastern Mushki"), and the other in the 8th to 7th centuries, located in ("Western Mushki"). Assyrian sources identify the Western Mushki with the , while Greek sources clearly distinguish between Phrygians and Moschoi.

12. Samtskhe- (Georgian: სამცხე-ჯავახეთი) (formerly Meskheti) is a region in southern Georgia, with Akhaltsikhe as its capital. Samtskhe-Javakheti comprises six administrative districts: Akhaltsikhe, Adigeni, Aspindza, Borjomi, Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda. There are 5 municipalities, 6 townlets, 67 community and village sakrebulos (assemblies), and 268 villages in the region. It is bordered by Guria and Imereti to the north, (Shida Kartli and Kvemo Kartli) to the north-east and to the east, Armenia and Turkey to the south and Ajara to the west. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus natural gas pipeline pass through this region

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12. Pliny in the 1st century AD mentions the Moscheni in southern Armenia ("Armenia" at the time stretching south and west to the Mediterranean, bordering on ). In Byzantine historiography, Moschoi was a name equivalent to or considered as the ancestors of "Cappadocians" (Eusebius) with their capital at Mazaca (later Caesarea Mazaca, modern ).

12. In the Georgian (Soviet and post-Soviet) historiography, the Meshket -Turks are said not to be Turks but have descended from the ancient the Georgian tribe "Meshket", that has been mentioned in the Assyrian and Antiquity writings, and of Herodotus and Strabo. In the , this tribe inhabited the Georgian principality Ssanzche-Ssaatabago, that used to be strong and wealthy, but was jeopardized, sieged, and conquered under the attacks of the Tatar-Mongols conquests (13th Century), the campaigns of Timut (Tammerlans; 14th Century) and the late feudal disintegration of Georgia in 1469. In 1555 it was a vassal-state of the Osmannic Turkish Empire and under the name Achalzychsky Pashalyk (Pashalyk - the Land of the Pasha) it became a part of the Osmannic Empire. For almost three centuries this region belonged to Turkey and first in 1829 after the Adrianopolic Peace Treaty between Russia and Turkey did the region become a province of Russia , (or of the Georgian territory, since all of Georgia belonged to Russia). According to Georgian historians, the Georgian population were influenced by Turkish culture in the 16th to 19th Century, converted to Islam and consequently was separated from the Georgian nation.

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IPA [ tu'bal ]), in Genesis 10 (the "Table of Nations"), was the name of a son of) תבל or תובל ,Tubal .1 , son of . 2. Many authors, following the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century AD), related the name to Iber. Concerning the question of the ethnic affinity of the population of Tubal, Josephus wrote: "Tobal gave rise to the Thobeles, who are now called Iberes". This version was repeated by Patriarch Eustathius of , Bishop Theodoret, and others. However, , , and the Welsh historian Nennius stated another tradition that Tubal was ancestor to not only Iberians, but also the 'Italians' [i.e., Italic tribes] and 'Spanish' [who were also called Iberians]. 3. Tubal answers to the Tibareni, as Meshech to the Moschi; close to one another, on the northern coast of Asia Minor, about the river Melanthius (Melet Irmak), in Herodotus' and Xenophon's days; previously among the most powerful races. The Assyrian monarchs from 1100 to 700 B.C. were often warring with the Muskai and Tuplai, E. of the Taurus range, and occupying the region afterward called Cappadocia, Rawlinson (Herodotus i. 535) makes them Turaniaus (the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, ii. 1010, calls them Scythians) who spread over the entire region between the Mediterranean and India, the Persian gulf and Caucasus. In Sargon's time, according to inscriptions, Ambris, son of Khuliya, was their hereditary chief, and by alliance with the kings of Musak and Vararat (Mesech and Ararat) who were revolting from Assyria. drew on himself the hostility of that monarch. Xenophon ( vii. 8, section 25) says the Tibareni were then an independent tribe; 24 kings of the Tuplai in previous ages are mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions (Hincks in Rawlinson's Herodotus i. 380 note). Rich in flocks (Apollon. Rhod., Arg. 2:377). http://www.bible-history.com/faussets/T/Tubal/

4. The Caucasian Iberians were ancestors of modern Georgians. Some modern Georgians also claim descent from Tubal, Togarmah and Meshech; a Georgian historian, Ivane Javakhishvili, considered , Tubal, Jabal and Jubal to be ancient Georgian tribal designations. 5. Tabal was a post-Hittite Luwian state in Asia Minor in the 1st millennium BC, and is often connected with Tubal (similar to their neighbors, the Mushki, traditionally associated with Meshech). Some historians further connect Tabal and Tubal with the tribe on the Black Sea coast later known to the Greeks as Tibareni, though this identification is uncertain. The Tibareni and other related tribes, the (Khalib/Khaldi) and the Mossynoeci (Mossynoikoi in Greek), were sometimes considered the founders of metallurgy. 6. A divergent tradition recorded by Hippolytus of (3rd cent.) lists Tubal's descendants as the "Hettali" (or Thessalians in some later copies), while the Book of the Bee (c. 1222) states that he was progenitor of Bithynians. 7. According to a Catalan legend, Japheth's son Tubal is said to have sailed from Jaffa with his family and arrived at the Francolí river of Spain in 2157 BC, where he founded a city named after his son Tarraho, now Tarragona. He then proceeded to the Ebro (like Iberia, named after his second son Iber), where he built several more settlements, including Amposta. His third son's name is given as

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Semptofail. Noah himself is said to have visited them here about 100 years later. Tubal is said to have reigned for 155 years, until he died while preparing to colonize and was succeeded by Iber. Other traditions make Tubal son of Japheth (who is often confounded with Tubal-Cain son of Lamech, a figure from before the flood) to be the founder of Ravenna in Italy, Setúbal in Portugal, and Toledo and many other places in Spain. The earliest source for most of these legends seems to have been the Pseudo-Berosus published by Annio da Viterbo in 1498, now widely considered a forgery. 8. Basque intellectuals like Poza (16th century) have named Tubal as the ancestor of Basques, and by extension, the Iberians. The French Basque author Augustin Chaho (19th century) published The Legend of Aitor, asserting that the common patriarch of the Basques was Aitor, a descendant of Tubal. 9. Tubal's sons are given different names in rabbinic sources. In Pseudo-Philo (written c. AD 70), his son's names are Phanatonova and Eteva, and they were given the land of "Pheed". The later mediaeval Chronicles of Jerahmeel gives these sons' names as Fantonya and Atipa, and says they subdued "Pahath"; elsewhere these chronicles include information derived from Jerome, identifying Tubal's descendants with Iberia and Hispania. In still another place, the Chronicles of Jerahmeel reproduces a more detailed legend taken from the earlier Yosippon (c. 950): Tubal's descendants, it says, camped in Tuscany and built a city called "Sabino", while the built "Posomanga" in neighboring Campania, with the Tiber river as the frontier between the two peoples. However, they soon went to war following the rape of the Sabines by the Kittim. This war was ended when the Kittim showed the descendants of Tubal their mutual progeny. A shorter, more garbled version of this story from Yosippon is also found in the later Book of Jasher, known from c. 1625, which additionally names Tubal's sons as Ariphi, Kesed and Taari. 10. The dictionary Taj al-Arus by al-Zubaidi (1790) notes that although some Islamic authors make the Khazars descendants of Japheth's son Khasheh (Meshech), others hold both the Khazars and Saqaliba (Slavs) to have come rather from his brother, Tubal. The New Unger's Bible Dictionary states in its entry on Tubal: "Tubal and Meschech, the Tabali and Mushki of the Assyrian monuments, were the representatives of eastern Asia Minor. Their territory originally extended far to the S[outh]. In the time of [Assyrian emperors] Sargon and Sennacherib, the territory of the Tabali adjoined Cilicia [in southeast Asia Minor], while the Mushki inhabited the highlands to the E[ast] of them, where they were in contact with the . In later days, however, Meshech had retreated to the N[orth], and the classical geographers place the Tibereni and the Mushki not far from the Black Sea." Thus we see a clear northward progression.

Conclusion: The best estimate is that at the time of Ezekiel is that:

Meshech = territory that is now Abkhazia Tubal = Territory that is now part of modern Georgia

Remember that in 2008 there was in August a brief war between Russia and Georgia. In that war Russia took Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The former corresponds to Meshech while the latter is smack bang in the middle of ancient Tubal.26

26 Note: there is no historical evidence that links Meshech and Tubal with Moscow and Tobolski – absolutely none. This is simply a case of an error oft repeated gaining credibility.

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Tubal Meshech Pre-August 2008

Post- August 2008

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PERSIA (IRAN) 1. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use in the Western world in 1935, before which the country was widely known as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, Iran is the name used officially in political contexts. The name Iran is a cognate of , and means "Land of the ". 2. The Persians were originally one of several ‘Aryan’ tribes that migrated into modern Iran from the plains of southern Russia around 1400 BC (the word Iran is derived from Aryan). They settled the southwest corner of the Iranian plateau, on the north shore of the Persian Gulf, on lands vacated by the Elamites who had been conquered and enslaved by the Assyrians. The Persians were separated from the great civilizations of by the Zagros Mountains. At its peak, the Persian Empire stretched from the Indus River across the Near East to the eastern Mediterranean coast, south into along the Nile to Sudan, across , and into and . 3. The Persians settled on relatively poor and remote lands where they were little troubled by first the Elamites to their west, then the Assyrians who destroyed the Elamites around 640 BC, and then the Medes (to their north) and resurgent Babylonians who conquered Assyria in 609 BC. Throughout this period, the various petty Persian kings were vassals of the richer and more advanced Medes. By the 6th century BC, the Medes had built a large empire that included the Persians to the east and the Assyrians to the west. However, in 550 BC Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered the Medes, acquiring Assyria in the process, which the Median King Cyarxes had taken in about 612 BC

Conclusion: Persia is equivalent to Iran

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PHUT (OR ‘LIBYA’)

pûṭ; Septuagint Greek Φουδ Phoud) is the third son of (one of the פוט :Phut27 or (Hebrew .1 sons of Noah), in the biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:6; cf. 1 Chronicles 1:8). 2. The Persian historian ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 915) recounts a tradition that the wife of Put was named Bakht, a daughter of Batawil son of , and that she bore him the "Copts". 3. The name Put (or Phut) is also used in the Bible for the people or nation said to be descended from him, usually placed in Ancient Libya, but connections are sometimes proposed with the Land of Punt28 known from Ancient Egyptian annals. 4. Josephus writes: "Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites (Phoutes), from himself: there is also a river in the country of Moors which bears that name; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river and the adjoining country by the appellation of Phut (Phoute): but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mezraim, who was called Lybyos." (AotJ Book 1:6/2). Pliny the Elder Nat. Hist. 5.1 and Ptolemy Geog. iv.1.3 both place the river Phuth on the west side of Mauretania (modern ). Ptolemy also mentions a city Putea in Libya (iv.3.39). 5. A Libyan connection has likewise been inferred from Nahum 3:9, where it is said that "Put and Lubim" were the helpers of Egypt. Other biblical verses consistently refer to the descendants of Put as . In Jeremiah 46:9, they are again described as being supporters of Egypt. Ezekiel mentions them three times - in 27:10, as supporters of Tyre (Phoenicia), in 30:5 again as supporting Egypt, and in 38:5, as supporters of Gog. The Septuagint Greek (LXX) substitutes Libues in Ezekiel where the Hebrew Bible refers to Put. However, the LXX reads Put in 66:19, in place of Pul in the Hebrew. 6. The Libyan tribe of pỉdw shows up in Egyptian records by the 22nd dynasty (943-716 BC, while a Ptolemaic text from Edfu refers to the t3 n nꜣ pỉt.w "the land of the Pitu". The word was later written in Demotic as Pỉt, and as Phaiat in Coptic, a name for Libya Aegypti, northwestern Egypt. 7. A fragment of Nebuchadnezzar II's annals mentions his campaign in 567 in Egypt, and defeating the soldiers of Putu Yavan, i.e. Greek Libya (Cyrene). A multilingual stele from al-Kabrīt, dating to the reign of Darius I refers to the Put as the province of Putiya (Old Persian) and Puṭa (Neo-Babylonian), where the equivalent text written in Egyptian has tꜣ ṯmḥw "Libya". Conclusion: The last two pieces of information place Put in Cyrenaica at the time of Ezekiel. The most likely identification then is that Put (often translated Libya in Bibles) refers to eastern Libya of our times.

27 Meaning = a bow

28 Sadler, Jr., Rodney (2009). "Put". In Katharine Sakenfeld. The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 4. Nashville: Abingdon Press. pp. 691–92.

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CUSH (‘ETHIOPIA’) 1. The Kingdom of or Kush was an ancient African kingdom situated on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. 2. Established after the collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, it was centred at Napata in its early phase. After king Kashta ("the Kushite") invaded Egypt in the 8th century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as Pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt for a century, until they were expelled by Psamtik I in 656 BC. 3. During Classical Antiquity, the Kushite imperial capital was at Meroe. In early Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia. The Kushite kingdom with its capital at Meroe persisted until the 4th century AD, when it weakened and disintegrated due to internal rebellion. 4. By the 1st century AD, the Kushite capital had been captured by the Beja Dynasty, who tried to revive the empire. The Kushite capital was eventually captured and burnt to the ground by the Kingdom of Axum. 5. The native name of the Kingdom was probably Kaš, recorded in Egyptian as kꜣš.[2] "Kash" (or Kush) is also an ethnic term for the native population who initiated the kingdom of Kush. The term is also displayed in the names of Kushite persons,[3] such as King Kashta. Geographically, Kush referred to the region south of the first cataract in general. Kush also was the home of the rulers of the 25th dynasty.[4] 6. The name Kush since at least the time of Josephus has been connected with the biblical character :son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). Ham had four sons named ,(כוש :Cush, in the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew Cush, Put, and (Hebrew name for Egypt).

The Kingdom of Cush (1070 BC–AD 350)

Conclusion Cush of Ezekiel’s time refers to Sudan from our era.

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GOMER 1. This identification is difficult. Originally (in the 1980s) I thought it may be said to be most of Europe excluding Greece and the United Kingdom. I was wrong because I did not stick to the rule of interpretation – namely that the peoples of Ezekiel 38 had to be identified according to the time of Ezekiel. 2. Once again Josephus was our link between Jewish names and Greek names for the nations. He says in his book Antiquities of the Jews: "for Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians, but were then called Gomerites." (Ant. Bk 1 Ch 6, Para 1) Isodore of Seville writing about AD 600 confirms what he says and wrote "Gomer, from whom proceeded the Galatae, that is the " (Origin lib ix). So then the argument went as follows: Celts come from Gomer. Therefore, all Celts in the time of Ezekiel would therefore be called Gomer. However, it must be remembered that Josephus was writing in the 1st century AD not in the time of Ezekiel. 3. And so I used ancient historians to locate the Celts in Ezekiel’s time. The ancient historian Strabo says "all the Galatae were called Celtae by the Greeks" while Diodorus Siculus reckons that "the Greeks call those who inhabit Marseilles and the inland territory, and all those who dwell toward the and the Pyrenean Mountains, by the name of Celts; but those who occupy the country lying to the northward, between the Ocean (Atlantic)and the Hercynian Mountains (), and all others as far an Scythia, they denominate Galatae; but the Romans call all those nations by one collective appellation, Galatae; that is Galli".Putting these quotations together we get the picture that Gomer founded the peoples called Celts and Galatae by the Greeks and Galli (Galls) by the Romans. This people lived in Josephus' time in Western Europe. 4. As to how far east these people extended in Ezekiel's time over six centuries earlier, it is hard to say with exactness. However, all the ancient historians are agreed that the Scythians (Magog) and the Celts/Galatae (Gomer) lived in adjoining territories. For example, Diodorus Siculus speaks of "Scythia above Gaul extending towards the Baltic" and "Celts-as far as Scythia". The difficulty in finding a definable border between Magog and Gomer is complicated. 5. It may just be possible that the identification of Gomer needs to be limited to those peoples and areas that were actually called by that name in Ezekiel’s time; namely the “Cimmerians”. These Cimmerians are believed to have been Indo-European. Their language is regarded as being related to Iranian or Thracian.

Cimmerians 800 BC Movement of Cimmerians between 695 and 678 BC

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Cimmerians from 600 -500 BC So by 300 BC Cimmerians are only now found in Eastern Europe.

Movement after 500 BC Thraco- Cimmerian Archaeological sites

Ancient Thrace & Thrace are connected with the Cimmerians Timeline

• 800 BC – Cimmerians29 live in Crimea and borth of Black Sea.3031 • 721-715 BC – Sargon II mentions a land of Gamirr (Cimmerians – Crimea southern Ukraine today) near to Urartu. (modern day Armenia)

29 A "mythical" people also named Cimmerians are described in Book 11, 14 of 's Odyssey as living beyond the Oceanus, in a land of fog and darkness, at the edge of the world and the entrance of Hades. 30The 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica reflects Herodotus, stating, "They [the Cimmerians] probably did live in the area north of the Black Sea, but attempts to define their original homeland more precisely by archaeological means, or even to fix the date of their expulsion from their country by the Scythians, have not so far been completely successful."[7] But, academic scholars have made use of documents dating to centuries earlier than Herodotus, such as intelligence reports to Sargon, and note that these identify the Cimmerians as living south rather than north of the Black Sea. 31 Some modern authors assert that the Cimmerians included mercenaries, whom the Assyrians knew as Khumri, who had been resettled there by Sargon. Later Greek accounts describe the Cimmerians as having previously lived on the steppes, between the Tyras (Dniester) and Tanais (Don) rivers. Greek and Mesopotamian sources note several Cimmerian kings including Tugdamme (Lygdamis in Greek; mid-7th century BC), and Sandakhshatra (late-7th century).

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• 714 – suicide of Rusas I of Urartu, after defeat by both the Assyrians and Cimmerians. • 705 – Sargon II of Assyria dies on an expedition against the Kulummu. • 700 - a lot of turmoil went on around the Black Sea. The Cimmerians (famous archers represented on certain Greek vases) were expelled from the southern Russian steppes by other famous warriors, the Scythians.32 The Cimmerians escaped rushing through Anatolia, the and ended up invading Eastern Europe. • 679/678 – Gimirri33 (Cimmerians)under a ruler called Teushpa invade Assyria from Hubuschna (Cappadocia?). Esarhaddon of Assyria defeats them in battle. • 676-674 – Cimmerians invade and destroy , and reach Paphlagonia.34 • 654 or 652 – Gyges of dies in battle against the Cimmerians. The Cimmerian occupation of Lydia was brief, however, possibly due to an outbreak of plague. Sack of Sardis; Cimmerians and Treres plunder Ionian colonies.35 • 644 – Cimmerians occupy Sardis, but withdraw soon afterwards • 637-626 – Cimmerians defeated by Alyattes II.36 • Pre-modern historians asserted Cimmerian descent for the Celts or the Germans, arguing from the similarity of Cimmerii to Cimbri or Cymry. It is unlikely that either Proto-Celtic or Proto-Germanic entered western Europe as late as the 7th century BC; their formation was commonly associated with the Bronze Age Urnfield and cultures, respectively. • It is, however, conceivable that a small-scale (in terms of population) 8th century "Thraco- Cimmerian"37 38migration triggered cultural changes that contributed to the transformation of the into the Hallstatt C culture, ushering in the European . Later Cimmerian remnant groups may have spread as far as to the Nordic Countries and the Rhine River. An example is the Cimbri tribe, considered to be a Germanic tribe hailing from the Himmerland (Old Danish Himber sysæl) region in northern Denmark. 39 • Around 600 B.C. the territory of was crossed by Thracian40-Cimmerian and Scythian tribes, some authorities identify them with “Thraco-Cimmerian” remains of the 8th–7th century BC found in the south-western Ukraine and in central Europe; these may perhaps be

32 Some commentators say the Scythians eventually drove the Cimmerians west into Central and Eastern Europe, where they became the "Germans", as they are known to this day. Some of the descendants of Gomer and that of his brethren then continued migrating westward, eventually populating all of Europe 33The first historical record of the Cimmerians appears in Assyrian annals in the year 714 BC. These describe how a people termed the Gimirri helped the forces of Sargon II to defeat the kingdom of Urartu. Their original homeland, called Gamir or Uishdish, seems to have been located within the buffer state of Mannae. The later geographer Ptolemy placed the Cimmerian city of Gomara in this region. After their conquests of Colchis and Iberia in the First Millennium BC, the Cimmerians also came to be known as Gimirri in Georgian. According to Georgian historians[8], the Cimmerians played an influential role in the development of both the Colchian and Iberian cultures. The modern-day Georgian word for hero, გმირი, gmiri, is derived from the word Gimirri. This refers to the Cimmerians who settled in the area after the initial conquests. 34 TRERES (Τρῆρες), a people repeatedly mentioned by Strabo, generally as a tribe of, or at least. as closely connected with, the Cimmerii, but in a few passages as . They are not named by Homer or Herodotus. Strabo was evidently undecided whether to regard them as a distinct race, or as identical with the Cimmerii, in whose company they several times made destructive inroads into Asia Minor. “The Cimmerii, whom they name Treres also, or some tribe of them, often overran the southern shores of the Euxine and the adjoining countries, sometimes throwing themselves upon the Paphlagonians, at other times upon the Phrygians, at the time when they say died from drinking bull's blood. And Lygdamis led his army as far as Lydia and , and took Sardes, but perished in Cilicia. And the Cimmerii and Treres often made such expeditions. But they say that the Treres and Cobus [their leader] were at last driven out [of Asia] by Madys, the king of the Scythians.” 1 (Strab. i. p.61). 35 “In olden times, it befel the Magnetes [the people of Magnesia on the Maeander] to be utterly destroyed by the Treres, a Cimmerian tribe.” (Id. xiv. p. 647; see also xi. p. 511, xii. p. 573; CIMMERII Vol. I. p. 623, seq.; Müller, Hist. Lit. Anc. Greece, pp. 108, 109; and cf. Hdt. 1.6, 15, 16, 103.) 36 King of Lydia (619–560 BC), considered to be the founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae. 37 Strabo (i. p.59) speaks of the Treres as dwelling with the Thracians; and says that the Treres, who were Thracians, possessed a part of the Troad after the time of Priam (xiii. p. 586). 38 Herodotus thought the Cimmerians and the Thracians closely related, writing that both peoples originally inhabited the northern shore of the Black Sea, and both were displaced about 700 BC, by invaders from the east. Whereas the Cimmerians would have departed this ancestral homeland by heading west and south across the Caucasus, the Thracians migrated southwest into the Balkans, where they established a successful and long-lived culture. The Tauri, the original inhabitants of Crimea, are sometimes identified as a people related to the Cimmerians and later the . 39 Wikipedia 40 Ancient Thrace is in today's Bulgaria, , northeastern Greece, European Turkey and northwestern Asiatic Turkey, eastern Serbia and parts of the Republic of Macedonia. 37 | P a g e

looked upon as traces of the western branch of the Cimmerians, who, under fresh Scythian pressure, eventually invaded the Hungarian plain41 and survived there until about 500 BC.42 • Belgrade was inhabited by a Thraco-Dacian tribe Singi; after the Celtic invasion in 279 BC, the took the city, naming it "Singidūn" (dūn, fortress).43 • Pliny the Younger in his work Plinii Caecilii Secundi Historia naturalis from the first century AD (69-75) mentioned people named Serbi, who lived near the Cimmerians.

Conclusion It appears the Cimmerians and the Thraco- are one and the same. 44So after originating in the Crimea they moved into South Eastern Europe in the time of Ezekiel and possibly occupied the territory that corresponds to these modern regions:

• Western Ukraine • Moldova including Transnistria • Romania • Bulgaria • Serbia • and maybe

South Eastern Europe

41 The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld) is a plain occupying the southern and eastern part of Hungary, some parts of the Eastern Slovak Lowland (Východoslovenská nížina), southwestern Ukraine, the Transcarpathian Lowland (Zakarpats'ka nyzovyna), western Romania (various names), northern Serbia (various names), and eastern Croatia (various names). It is the largest part of the Pannonian Plain. In Serbia, the plain is mostly divided into 3 large geographical areas known as the Bačka, and Syrmia, most of which are located in the Vojvodina province 42 Encyclopaedia Brittanica Online 43 Wikipedia

44 Herodotus thought the Cimmerians and the Thracians closely related, writing that both peoples originally inhabited the northern shore of the Black Sea, and both were displaced about 700 BC, by invaders from the east. Whereas the Cimmerians would have departed this ancestral homeland by heading west and south across the Caucasus, the Thracians migrated southwest into the Balkans, where they established a successful and long-lived culture. The Tauri, the original inhabitants of Crimea, are sometimes identified as a people related to the Cimmerians and later the Taurisci.

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TOGARMAH

:Togarmah ; Armenian: Թորգոմ/T’orgom ; Georgian/ּתוגרמה :Togarmah (Hebrew .1 თარგამოს/T’argamos) third son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, brother of and Riphat (Genesis 10:3). He is held to be the ancestor of the peoples of the South Caucasus (the Georgians and the Armenians). 2. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100 AD), Roman Catholic priest Jerome (c. 347 – 420 AD) and Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636 AD) regarded Togarmah as the father of the Phrygians. 3. Saint Hippolytus (c. 170-c. 236 AD), the Father of the Church History Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263 – c. 339 AD), and the Christian bishop Theodoret (c. 393 – c. 457 AD) regarded him as a father of Armenians. 4. Both Armenian Moses of Chorene and Georgian Leonti Mroveli regarded Togarmah as the founder of their nations along with other Caucasian people. 5. In native , Armenians still call themselves "Hayer" and their county "Hayastan" (the land of ) after their founder Haik who was son of Togarmah according to the both above mentioned Georgian and Armenian historians. In the past,the country was historically called by natives Metz Hayk/Hayq (Greater Armenia) and Poqr Hayk/Hayq (Lesser Armenia). This is true for Georgia (/Sakartvelo) and other Peoples of the Caucasus like (after Kakhos- son of Kartlos) or Leketi (after Lekos son of Togarmah) according to Leonti Mroveli. 6. Other names were either changed or replaced by Greek, French or English descriptions, but the native language and self-designation in Caucasus preserve some historical facts and figures reflecting the recorded history of Georgian and Armenian people. 7. According to the Fausset's Bible Dictionary by A. R. Fausset (Zondervan Publishing House) first printing in 1949 and 22 printing 1980 ISBN 0-310-24310-6 page 695: 8. "Togarmah son of Gomer, brother of Ashkenaz and Riphat answering to Armenia. From Toka, Sanskrit for tribe or race and Armah (Armenia)². The Armenians represent Haik to be their founder and son of Thorgau (Moses Choren i. 4,9-11). The Phrygians, the race that overspread Asia Minor, probably migrated from Armenia, their language resembled Armenian (Eudoxus, in Steph. Byz on Armenia). The Phrygian is Indo-Germanic as inscriptions prove, and resembled Greek (Plato, Cartyl). In Ezekiak xxvii 14 Togarmah appears trading with Tyre for horses and mules; so Strabo (xi 13,9) makes Armenians famous for breeding horses. In xxxviii 6 Togarmah comes with Gomer from the north against Palestine, this and Genesis x.3 imply Togarmah's connection with the Japhetic races, which modern researches confirms to as Armenia. The Armenian connection with the Celts (Gomer i.e Cimbri, Cimmerians, Crimea, Cymry) implies in Togarmah being Gomer's son, is not unlikely. The Imperial Dictionary makes Togarmah to mean the Torkomans who have always joined the Turks, i.e Gog (Ezk. xxxviii 1-6) or the king of the north (Daniel xi 40); Bochart makes Goghasan the original form, among the Colchians, Armenians, and Chaldeans, for which the Greeks gave Caucasus."² Grimm (Gesch. deutsch. Sprache, II, 325) 9. In the old genealogical list preserved by Khorenatsi, Hyek is considered the son of Torgom. The origin of this name is linked with that of the city-land of Tarkuma/Tarhigama(some scholars locate this city

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in Hyeasa, but others who place it in the south-western regions of the Armenian Highland((see Tarkuma)), in Arme-Subaria, north of (see Tarhigamani), seem to be more correct. 10. According to The Georgian Chronicles and The Togarmah lived in Babylon who received the land between two Seas (Black Sea and ) and two Mountains (Mount Elbrus and Mount Ararat) in his possession when people started division of lands and migration in different parts of the world. He then settled near Mount Ararat and divided his land among his sons:[1][2] a. Haik (Հայք) - first son of Togarmah, inherited Mount Ararat and founded the Armenian nation. b. Kartlos (ქართლოსი) - settled in north-east from Ararat, founder of Kartli (Sa'kartvelo) who united other brothers and founded the Georgian nation. c. Bardos d. Movakos (Movkans) e. Lekos (Lak) - Lak people settled in Caucasus Mountains f. Heros (Herans) - settled in the eastern part of Ararat g. (Kovkases) - settled beyond the Caucasus Range h. Egros (Egers) - settled between the Black Sea and Likhi Range (Western Georgia)

An Abridgement from the History of the Armenians of Sebastia

Geography : Sebastia, which Turks later called Sivas, is located at the upper reaches of River Halys (Kizil Irmak), and is the provincial capital. In 1915 the city's population consisted of 40,000 Turks and 30,000 Armenians. The plateau upon which the city has been founded is 1300 meters above sea level. Its climate is healthy, even though winters are severe. The province is rich in agricultural products and animal husbandry. The mountains are largely barren, even though there are areas covered with forests. A number of mines have been discovered, but to a large extent have not been exploited except for salt mines. (See map A). History : (The Development of the Armenian People and Lesser Armenia). Armenians have been the indigenous and permanent people of the Armenian plateau, the component strains were the Haiasa-Azzis. The names Haiastan and Hai have been derived from Haiasa. (.....) The city-states of Asia Minor were related in their racial origin to the Haiasa-Azzi racial union. The first of these city-states was, according to a Hitite inscription, Tegamma, which corresponds to the Armenian translation of the Biblical Torgoma, present Gurin, one of the principal cities of the Sivas province. The House of Torgom or Torgoma Toun has been deemed in Armenian traditional history a synonym of Armenia. Togoma includes also the Poukhkhouva "land" which corresponds to contemporary Arabkir45. It is thus indicated that the land known as Lesser Armenia was inhabited by Armenians in times immemorial. Sivas, the provincial capital of Lesser Armenia was built during the Roman ascendency by Queen Pudotoris of Cappadocia during the first quarter of the first century B.C. and was named or Sevastia in honor of the Caesar Augustus.

Movses Khorenatsi -The Father of Armenian History

Movses Khorenatsi’s history begins with a genealogy of the Armenian people. Writing after Armenia’s conversion to Christianity, Khorenatsi draws on Biblical materials, starting with Adam and linking the Armenians with the Old Testament story of Noah and his three sons , Ham and Japheth (Gen. 9:18-10:32). While Shem, Ham and their descendants moved south to Canaan and Egypt, Japheth and his children multiplied in the Highlands. According to Biblical genealogy, Japheth’s first son Gomer had a son Togarmah

45 Now part of Yerevan – capital of Armenia

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(Gen. 10:2, 1 Chron. 1:4). Togarmah, called Torgom in Armenian, was identified early on by Armenian and Greek writers as the ancestor of the Armenians.

According to Khorenatsi, Torgom begat Hayk, who, according to oral tradition, was the eponymous hero of the Armenian people. For this reason, the Armenians often refer to themselves as haykazyan, ‘the nation of Hayk.’ Making this linkage between Biblical genealogy and Armenian oral history, Khorenatsi (Bk. I.5) sets forth the following generations: a. Hayk begat Aramaneak b. Aramaneak begat Aramayis c. Aramayis begat Amasya d. Amasya begat Gegham e. Gegham begat Harma f. Harma begat Aram g. Aram begat Ara the Handsome For many of these figures, Khorenatsi records oral tradition. Unable to verify that tradition, already more than a thousand years old when he wrote it down, he notes:

Very frequently the people of the older generation of Aram's nation recall these events in ballads for the lyre, songs and dances. And whether these tales are true or false is not our primary concern. Rather to make you aware of everything, I include in this book all that comes from oral tradition and from books, so that you might appreciate the plain fairness of my thoughts . . . (Khorenatsi, Bk. I.6).34

Conclusion : The territory of Togarmah corresponds to Armenia of today

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SHEBA Sabāʾ, South Arabian Himjar alif.PNGHimjar ba.PNGHimjar ,سبأ :Sheba (Ge'ez: ሳባ, Saba, Arabic .1 (Šeḇā) was a kingdom mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament ,שבא :sin.PNG, Hebrew and the Qur'an. Sheba features in Ethiopian, Hebrew and Qur'anic traditions. Among other things it was the home of the biblical "Queen of Sheba" (named Makeda in Ethiopian tradition and Bilqīs in Arabic tradition). 2. Modern archaeological studies support the view that the biblical kingdom of Sheba was the ancient Semitic civilization of Saba in Southern Arabia in Yemen, between 1200 BC until 275 AD with its capital Marib.The Kingdom fell after a long but sporadic civil war between several Yemenite dynasties claiming kingship, resulting in the rise of the late . 3. Similar description in the Hebrew Bible is found in Strabo's writings and Assyrian annals about the Their civilization stretched as far as Aqaba with small colonies to protect the trade routes, these colonies included Yathrib and the central Arabian kingdom of and northern Ethiopia where archaeologists found an ancient temple dedicated to the Sabaean chief god El-Maqah [Wikipedia)

Conclusion: Sheba is primarily Yemen but may include the Gulf states such as Kuwait, , and Bahrain

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DEDAN 1. The word Dedan means "low ground". The people are called Dedanim or Dedanites. 2. In the Bible, it can refer to either: • A son of Raamah (Genesis 10:7). His descendants are mentioned in Isaiah 21:13, :13 and :15. They probably settled among the sons of Cush, on the north-west coast of the present Persian Gulf. • A son of Jokshan, Abraham's son by Keturah (1 Chronicles 1:32). His descendants settled on the Syrian borders about the territory of Edom. They probably led a pastoral life. • a city of Arabia, modern Al-'Ula. 3. Dedan, in the latter meaning, is first mentioned in the , (Chapters 27 and 38). Chapter 27 is a roster of the trading partners of the city of Tyre (today in modern Lebanon), where Dedan is noted as a nation or kingdom which traded in saddle blankets (Ezekiel 27:20). 4. In Isaiah 21:13 allusion is made to the "caravans of Dedanites" in the wilds of Arabia, and Ezekiel mentions them as supplying Tyre with precious things (Ezekiel 27:20; in verse 15.

Ancient Al’Ula City or Dadan City

Conclusion: Dedan in Ezekiel’s time was in the territory that is now called Saudi Arabia

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TARSHISH

The Biblical Clues

1. Tarshish appears to have originally been one of the Greek family of Nations: “And the sons of ; , and Tarshish, Kittim, and .” (Gen 10:4)

Elishah = mainland Greeks Kittim= Cyprus Dodanim = Rhodes Tarshish = Crete & Minoans

2. It seems that Tarshish could only be reached by ship and that it was a long way from Israel. A return trip travelling east took three years: “For the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and , ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” ( 2Chron 9:21)46 “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.” (Jonah 1:3) This last passage shows that Tarshish could be reached travelling west from Joppa and must have been a fair distance away as Jonah was trying to avoid Assyria. It also shows that Tarshish existed in Jonah’s time in the west.

3. Tarshish is associated with ships: (Psalm 48:7, Isaiah 2:16, :6,14, Isaiah 60:9) The term "ships of Tarshish" is rendered by Jewish scholars "sea-ships" (comp. LXX., Isa. ii. 16, πλοῖα θαλαρρης). Jerome, too, renders "Tarshish" by "sea" in many instances; and in his commentary on Isaiah (l.c.) he declares that he had been told by his Jewish teachers that the Hebrew word for "sea" was "tarshish”.

4. Tarshish is connected with the ‘islands of the sea’: Psalm 72:1, Isa 60:9,

5. Tarshish was associated with merchants and sea trade – especially in metals and luxury items: “Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is violet and purple; they are all the work of skilled men.” (Jer 10:9) “Tarshish did business with you (i.e. Tyre) because of your great wealth of every kind; silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged for your wares. (Ezekiel 27:12) “The ships of Tarshish travelled for you with your merchandise. So you were filled and heavily laden in the heart of the seas.( Eze 27:25)

6. Tarshish still exists in the last days (Ezekiel 38:13)

7. Tyre is called the daughter of Tarshish – as if it inherits its mantle (Isaiah 23:10)

8. Tarshish returns Jewish people home in the last days (Isaiah 60:9) and is their protector.

46 This is in about 950 BC

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Conclusions47 1. The first and original Tarshish was the Minoan civilization of Crete which was the first great sea power according to the Greek historian Thucydides.

2. The name was then passed on to the city of Tartessos in southern Spain until it disappeared from history sometime after the demise of its last king Argentinio in about 550 BC.

3. After that the Tarshish name is inherited by the Phoenicians (Tyre and Sidon ) until the capture of Tyre by in 332 B.C.

4. The title then went to the city of Carthage, which became the great merchant sea power, until it was itself destroyed by the Romans in 149BC.

5. Tarshish appears in the last days again as the merchant sea power that was Great Britain of the 19th and early twentieth centuries. Britain was clearly the nation who began the process of bringing Jerusalem’s sons-the Jewish people- from afar.

6. Later in events leading up to Christ’s revelation at Jerusalem the “merchants of Tarshish ” turn out to be the USA and UK combined.; the USA gaining the position of number one sea trading power from about 1940 onwards and protector of the new Israel from 1948 onwards.

7. There will yet be another Tarshish in the kingdom age as the prophet Isaiah says Jews returning home in the future will come from Tarshish.

8. Tarshish therefore is a name used of the merchant sea power of any age.

Painting found in Knossos, Crete

47 For a full treatment of the identification of Tarshish there is a 50 plus page document on the issue.

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ULTIMATE SUMMARY

This prophecy in reality tells us that God will cause the leader of Russia, along with his allies, to invade Israel in the last days.

This will result in his destruction and God’s glory and praise in the sight of all the world.

This invasion occurs at a time when Israel is:

• Recently restored to the land from all over the world (i.e. post Russian pogroms of the 1880s) • Occupying the West Bank (“Mountains of Israel”) • Occupying the high land (“navel of the earth”) • Living peacefully and confidently in the land

The Russian leader appears to be in control of the territory of European Russia, Central Asia, Siberia, the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Abkhazia and parts of Georgia.

His allies include Iran, Sudan, Libya, Serbia, and Armenia.

He is weakly opposed by the merchant sea nations (e.g. USA, UK, Australia.) located in the Middle East (c.p. They say “why have you come?” to the Russian leader48). These merchant nations are friendly with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Yemen.

48 Implying they are already in the Middle East – which they are – being pulled there by the 1st Gulf War in 1990

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